alsactl

ALSACTL(1)ALSACTL(1)

NAME

alsactl - advanced controls for ALSA soundcard driver

SYNOPSIS

alsactl [options] [store|restore|names] <card # or id>

DESCRIPTION

alsactl is used to control advanced settings for the ALSA soundcard
drivers. It supports multiple soundcards. If your card has features
that you can’t seem to control from a mixer application, you have come
to the right place.

COMMANDS

store saves the current driver state for the selected soundcard to the
configuration file.
restore loads driver state for the selected soundcard from the configu-
ration file.
names generates list of available device names for applications. The
card number or id is ignored for this command. The list is always gen-
erated for all available cards.
If no soundcards are specified, setup for all cards will be saved or
loaded.

OPTIONS

-h,--help
Help: show available flags and commands.
-f,--file
Select the configuration file to use. The default is
/etc/asound.state or /etc/asound.names (for the names command).
-F,--force
Used with restore command. Try to restore the matching control
elements as much as possible.
-d,--debug
Use debug mode: a bit more verbose.
-v,--version
Print alsactl version number.

FILES

/etc/asound.state (or whatever file you specify with the -f flag) is
used to store current settings for your soundcards. The settings
include all the usual soundcard mixer settings. More importantly, als-
actl is capable of controlling other card-specific features that mixer
apps usually don’t know about.
The configuration file is generated automatically by running alsactlstore. Editing the configuration file by hand may be necessary for some
soundcard features (e.g. enabling/disabling automatic mic gain, digital
output, joystick/game ports, some future MIDI routing options, etc).
/etc/asound.names (or whatever file you specify with the -f flag) is
used to store the list of device names available in your system. The
list does not contain all virtual names, because the name space is
infinite, but it detects present hardware and generates list of common
names. The user / system administrator / another configuration tool
might modify the file to add virtual names as well.

SEE ALSO

amixer(1),alsamixer(1),aplay(1)

BUGS

None known.

AUTHOR

alsactl is by Jaroslav Kysela <perex@suse.cz> and Abramo Bagnara
<abramo@alsa-project.org>. This document is by Paul Winkler
<zarmzarm@erols.com>.
15 May 2001 ALSACTL(1)